Premise: A woman hires a homeless man to be the family’s butler and falls in love with him, surprisingly to his initial protest.
It’s funny to me when people talk about “Eat the Rich” like it’s something new. There’s always been malice toward the rich. A healthy portion of the rich have always deserved that malice. My Man Godfrey is about this but in a very Hays Code way. This film was made in the shadow of the Great Depression and the view of the rich was at a nadir. So, the scavenger hunt in this is particularly brutal. I assume “forgotten man” was more common slang in the 30s, but it’s still dehumanizing to literally have finding a forgotten man as an item for the scavenger hunt. I remember back when I was working at Target, a girl got a picture with me as part of a scavenger hunt she was on (“Target employee” was the item, I think, or maybe just “department store employee”). Even that felt a little demeaning. Looking for a homeless man forgotten by society and actually bringing him to the ballroom is insanely cruel.
The film has a lot of fun with the over-the-top family who Godfrey works for. This is a definitive screwball comedy. While I appreciated Carole Lombard as the female lead, I really was exhausted by that family by the end. I’m not a huge fan of this specific mix of rapid-fire and obvious comedy. I’d say this is a film I respect more than I like.
Oh, I do think the opening credits are incredibly clever though.
Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment